


How you get home

by Philomytha



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightingale and Peter at the end of <em>Moon Over Soho</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How you get home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blind_bard](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=blind_bard).



Nightingale had learned to trust his gut feeling over the years, and he had a bad feeling about the Cafe de Paris when Peter went in. He signalled to Caffrey to stand ready, and without waiting the full five minutes, followed Peter inside. There was a very real possibility of this being yet another trap, that Peter's 'Faceless Man' had anticipated them again and was here waiting. And in that case--well, Peter had been spectacularly lucky once tonight. Nightingale knew for certain that luck wouldn't hold for ever. He remembered suddenly Master Thorndyke, who'd taught him about the uses of magic in combat, stressing again and again how superior magical skill was the least important thing in a duel, compared to preparation and planning and practice. But tonight he was tired, unwell and unprepared. 

He walked slowly through the Cafe de Paris, with careful quiet steps. Nothing. He followed Peter's trail of open doors and lights left on until he came to the ballroom. 

The three creatures wearing the bodies and minds of young women were sitting around a table. Dead. There was no magic in the air, no _vestigia_ , no hint of any ambush, though as he approached he turned his head from side to side, scanning with every sense. Peter was staring at the dead, at the one called Simone, his lover. 

Nightingale's first thought was anger. Peter had been on fire with all the righteousness of youth, determined to find a new way to handle beings like Simone and Peggy and Cheri, determined to cut his own path through the untouched forest instead of following Nightingale's muddy and tangled way. He'd argued and persuaded and planned--and he'd been right. 

And now it was all for nothing, because they had killed themselves. 

Peter turned as he approached, an attempt at alertness that made Nightingale wince. "I didn't contaminate the crime scene," he said dully. "We need to call it in."

"Yes," said Nightingale. "We do. I'm sorry."

He wondered whether he should send Peter away, back to the Folly, and deal with this himself. Let Peter's involvement in the case disappear. The boy still hadn't moved. 

"Can you do this?" he asked. "I could handle this myself, and you can go home and get some rest."

Peter shook his head. "I'll be fine," he said, unconvincingly.

"You'll need to speak to the investigation, and not tell them--"

He looked around at that. "Lie to them, you mean?"

Nightingale grimaced. It seemed it was a night for plain speaking. "Lie to them, if you wish. Tell them only those facts which they need to know."

"I didn't realise, when I started, how many lies I'd have to tell," Peter muttered.

"I know. Can you do it tonight, Peter, or would you rather go home?"

"They came to our attention through a different case of a suspicious death but we didn't find anything connecting them. I thought Simone was pretty, but I didn't have an inappropriate relationship with her. They certainly didn't get bombed in the Blitz and turn into immortal jazz vampires who accidentally killed all their friends and lovers over the decades." He attempted a defiant look at Nightingale. "That good enough, sir?"

Nightingale ignored the defiance. "Fine," he said. "You'll do." He hadn't bothered to carry one of those modern radios himself, since if he was faced with any emergency that required his skills it would fail, but Peter had one. "Go ahead."

He didn't insult Peter by watching or listening as the boy made the call, instead going for a final sweep of the building. Caffrey and the lads would need to be well away by the time the response showed up, though with no crime in progress and a busy London night, he probably had time to spare. Once he was sure the building was empty of chimerae and black--no, he corrected himself even in thought, _evil_ magicians, he went back to the van.

"I think we're done for tonight," he said. "You can stand down. Thank you for coming out."

Caffrey didn't quite salute him, but he twitched as if he wanted to. "Any time," he said. He gave Nightingale a narrow-eyed look. "You need anything else, sir?"

"I'm fine, and there will be regular police showing up soon here, so get yourselves well clear." 

Caffrey didn't argue further, and Nightingale watched as the men piled back into the van and drove away, sticking carefully to the speed limit. He took a deep breath, winced as the scars on his chest pulled, and went back to wait with Peter inside.

The response took a good twenty minutes to arrive, and they were both questioned for a second time that night, again in separate cars. Nightingale sat through his cross-examination quietly. In truth, it was a relief just to be sitting down, on something soft out of the night's chill; they even offered him lukewarm tea from a flask. There wasn't anything they could ask that would cause him any disquiet. He'd used up all his energy on Peter's much harsher questioning earlier. 

When they finally said he could go, it was an effort to stand up and walk away from the car. His scars ached as he moved, a dull throb he was used to ignoring, but now it was combined with the shivery chills that told him he was probably starting another fever. He almost wished Walid would show up and order him to bed, or to the hospital, or otherwise bully him out of this disastrous night. But Walid had already been and gone while they were being questioned, taking the bodies off like a very curious and antiseptic ghoul and leaving the living behind. 

It took another twenty minutes before the investigating officers were finished with Peter, and Nightingale waited for him, leaning unobtrusively on the wall. When Peter finally was released, he stumbled blindly out of the panda and stopped in the street as if not sure which way to go now. Nightingale recognised that stalled motion, and he saw the grief on Peter's face. 

A part of his mind wished that he'd left Peter sitting waiting for his ghost last January, that he'd never approached him, never taken an apprentice, never cared about what happened to him. If not for Peter, he could just go home and sleep. Instead he forced himself into motion again.

"Are they finished with you?" he asked Peter.

Peter turned to look at him. "Yes. They don't seem that bothered." He paused. "I didn't tell them--" 

"Quite," Nightingale said. "I didn't expect you would. All right. Let's go home."

He had to put a hand on Peter's shoulder and give him a little push to get him started in the direction of the Jag. Peter sat in the passenger seat without speaking, and Nightingale supposed that meant he had to drive. He didn't think either of them were really fit to drive, but he was better than Peter.

The roar of the engine as she started up comforted him. The Jag was a constant in his life, reliable and true as long as he took care of her, and he almost fancied her handling was a bit easier tonight, as if she knew he wasn't up to much right now. Even so the scar dragged on his chest every time he shifted gears, and by the time he put her into the garage at the Folly, he was flinching at every bump. 

Peter got out of the car as mechanically as he'd got in. He hadn't spoken during the journey, and Nightingale had no idea what would draw him out of this silent misery. Peter silent and wretched felt horribly wrong, like a cello with all its strings broken. Nightingale opened his own door and then worked his way to his feet again, concealing how much he was struggling from Peter. 

This strategy worked for two steps, and then the garage began to tilt and spin around him and he had to stop and put his hand on the rear window of the Jag. Peter turned and seemed to see him for the first time since he'd found the girls' bodies. Nightingale quickly released the Jag and ordered his disobedient body to walk briskly across the garage towards the kitchen door. Peter needed him to be strong right now. There would be time to see to his own needs once he'd cared for his apprentice.

"Inspector," Peter said, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine. You should go and get a hot drink inside you, and something to eat, and then go to bed." He went up the two steps to the kitchen door, and the garage swam again, but this time Peter took a firm hold of his arm. 

"So should you. And take something, shit, sir, you're burning up. Dr Walid is going to kill us." 

Nightingale was going to pull away and tell Peter to stop making a fuss, but there was some animation in Peter's voice again, just a little. Sometimes, he knew all too well, the best way to cope with grief was to keep busy. Do something useful. Take care of something, or someone. He didn't know what he could give Peter that would help, but perhaps he could give his pride for a while. So he allowed Peter to help him inside, sit him down in the night-quiet kitchen, and fuss around making hot sweet tea and finding Molly's biscuit tin. Toby, who had been sleeping on the hearthrug, padded over and followed Peter around as he worked, not begging for food, just shadowing him. Nightingale sat and let Peter take care of him. It seemed to help, and it meant that Peter ate and drank too. Nightingale had no appetite, but he complied with Peter's instructions, though he protested a little bit so as not to worry Peter too much. 

"You can't," Peter said as he sipped his own tea, looking like he wasn't tasting it any more than Nightingale was his, "you can't blame her. Any of them. They had no more idea they were killing people than--than a hurricane knows. And when they found out--"

"I don't blame them. But our job is to protect the public from the danger they posed. I think your plans would have been successful." He knew they would have, in the end, because Peter would keep trying and trying and trying until he found something that worked. He was as relentless in his way as any terrier. 

"You'll still do it?" he said. "If we have any other cases like this. You'll help me figure out some way to keep the peace and not just... blow them all up?" 

"Yes," Nightingale answered simply. "Yes, I will." 

He thought perhaps he should have argued more, because that assent seemed to throw Peter off. But he was too tired to repeat their earlier debate, to discuss every possibility now. Peter stared into space for a while, his stunned grief returning, and Nightingale pushed himself to his feet. The room didn't spin as much as before, but Peter evidently didn't think much of his recovery, because he hovered at Nightingale's elbow as they went out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and shadowed him patiently to the door of his room. 

"Will you be all right?" he said, and Nightingale had to stop himself from giving a laugh at the irony of the question. _Will you be all right, Peter?_ He knew the answer to that already: no, and yes. Not tonight, because he knew that no matter what he did, in the end Peter would be alone with his grief. But eventually, yes. 

"I'll be fine," he said. "Try to get some sleep, Peter. It will help." There was much more he wanted to say. _I know how this feels. There's nothing anyone can really do to make it easier, but this hot angry grief will subside and in the end it will all become a part of you and you will carry on with your life anyway._ But he didn't have the words and it was something you had to learn for yourself. He did put his hand on the boy's shoulder and press it gently. "I'm sorry." 

Peter leaned unconsciously into the touch for a moment, then drew back. "Thanks," he muttered, and stepped away. Nightingale went into his room and closed the door, but ignored his own exhaustion a few minutes longer and stood just inside, listening. Peter lingered on the gallery for a few moments, and then Nightingale heard him limping up to the second floor and his own bed. When he heard the door to Peter's bedroom close, Nightingale allowed himself to head for his own bed. There was nothing more he could do for Peter tonight. He'd got him home safe, and beyond that, it was out of his hands.


End file.
